I just got off the phone with my friend, Tom Tancredo. Oh, I don’t know him as well as many of you do, but when I hung up a wave of sadness went through my bones. The times they-are-a-changing, and as they change it is important to point out for posterity the truth about one of the most lasting and enduring figures in Colorado politics.
In Tancredo’s case, there is no one in politics (and I have met a lot of them) that are so vastly different in person than what the media has made them out to be. Just look up the articles about Tancredo, and read how they call him a racist, anti-Hispanic, dangerous, a hothead, all in the attempt to make him unacceptable. Oh, and not just progressives. No, the establishment Republicans couldn’t stand him either sabotaging his governor’s campaign in 2014 and looking forward to doing it again this year.
Our first real time together was in early June 2013. A Denver bar was just the place for two raised-Catholic, born-again Christian, teetotalers to share a bottle of ginger-ale. What a great and gentle man he was. We shared personal stories and spent time trying to find ways to help one another. A former Congressman with no airs of his successes, rather just a real concern for his fellowman.
There was a Tancredo hater sitting next to us and he kept interrupting, clearly trying to cause a scene — an obvious non-teetotaler. Unlike what the press would have liked to have written, Tancredo never responded and just moved us and our bottle, over to the restaurant area where we could finish our conversation, laughing about “how people could be.”
At one point I said I had to go to give a speech. Tancredo said he had to go and give one also. It turned out we were giving speeches at the same event. Laughing, we hurried to our cars, and when we got there, Tancredo actually cut down his speaking time to introduce me to the crowd. A kind and considerate man.
Like an Old Testament prophet, Tancredo has been preaching and warning of what can happen when this great country ignores the rule of law. And much like the people of that time, they are ignoring his message as this great republic starts to slip out of our hands.
Yet, he has always been just the opposite of how the press has described him. You would think if you turned on a radio show there would be a screaming, hair-on-fire Tom Tancredo, but, simply put, that Tom Tancredo does not exist. Just listen to the tapes and watch him on TV. I have. Always courteous, a great sense of humor and just the truth as he sees it.
It is not him, I explained on the phone a few hours after he decided to end his quest for governor. It is the times we live in. It is not time in Colorado for a plain-spoken man who actually answers questions directly. No, it looks like the people want their version of Baal and so they will have it.
Steve Laffey, of Fort Collins, is the former president and chief operating officer of Morgan Keegan Inc. and mayor of Cranston, R.I.
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